Constitutional history -- England -- Sources; Magna Carta
28. No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money therefor,
unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller.
29. No constable shall compel any knight to give money in lieu of
castle-guard, when he is willing to perform it in his own person, or
(if he himself cannot do it from any reasonable cause) then by another
responsible man. Further, if we have led or sent him upon military
service, he shall be relieved from guard in proportion to the time
during which he has been on service because of us.
30. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or other person, shall take the
horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the will of
the said freeman.
31. Neither we nor our bailiffs shall take, for our castles or for any
other work of ours, wood which is not ours, against the will of the
owner of that wood.
32. We will not retain beyond one year and one day, the lands those who
have been convicted of felony, and the lands shall thereafter be handed
over to the lords of the fiefs.
33. All kydells for the future shall be removed altogether from Thames
and Medway, and throughout all England, except upon the seashore.
34. The writ which is called praecipe shall not for the future be
issued to anyone, regarding any tenement whereby a freeman may lose his
court.
35. Let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and
one measure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, “the London
quarter”; and one width of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or
“halberget”), to wit, two ells within the selvedges; of weights also
let it be as of measures.
36. Nothing in future shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition
of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and never denied.
37. If anyone holds of us by fee-farm, either by socage or by burage,
or of any other land by knight’s service, we will not (by reason of
that fee-farm, socage, or burgage), have the wardship of the heir, or
of such land of his as if of the fief of that other; nor shall we have
wardship of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm
owes knight’s service. We will not by reason of any small serjeancy
which anyone may hold of us by the service of rendering to us knives,
arrows, or the like, have wardship of his heir or of the land which he
holds of another lord by knight’s service.
38. No bailiff for the future shall, upon his own unsupported
complaint, put anyone to his “law”, without credible witnesses brought
for this purposes.
39. No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or
in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except
by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or
justice.
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